Miranda @ Bibliodaze

See more of my reviews at On The Nightstand! I won a digital copy of this book from the lovely author herself. Well, this was a wonderfully creepy ride! I think it maybe could have used another draft to really cinch things in, but it's still a good book.The writing style is wonderful, with some very nice description and good pacing. Val and Gavin are nicely composed characters and fully realized, though as a downside the secondary characters fall flat at times, especially Val's other friends. Since the story is so focused on Val and Gavin I can forgive it, and her friends do get their moments to shine, Lisa especially. I liked the attention given to how being stalked affected Val and how Gavin's actions hurt her, even while at times she found it thrilling. I worried at first that her finding it enticing would be softening it a little, but I shouldn't have. While Val does at times find Gavin's actions a little thrilling, she's on the whole frightened by it and eventually a large part of her personality is radically shifted by what happens. I appreciated this sensitivity to dealing with stalking and the effect it has on someone.But Val, bless her, was not the brightest crayon in the box. I might be holding her to too high a standard since she's fourteen and incredibly naive, but it takes her far too long to figure out that Gavin is her stalker, especially when he outright says he watches her at school and she gets suspicious notes in her locker. Following that, I found her Mother's approach to dealing with this highly troubling as well. When Val finally does tell her what's going on, she says to just keep blocking him whenever he messages her and then says Val should change her Facebook icon, which is of her in her track suit. A paragraph ago her Mother said it wasn't her fault, then says dressing in a perceived provocative manner is needlessly egging him on. Maybe this is just me, but if my daughter had come to me and said that she was being stalked, I would go to the police immediately.Likewise, after her daughter is attacked by Gavin, she allows Val to have a final say in whether or not they should go to the police. Sorry, no. I'm usually in favour of a victim choosing whether or not to proceed with such a thing, but in this case it needs to be the parent's decision, especially since Val is a minor. It really did feel like her Mother was being really light on this just to keep the story going to the (admittedly) horrifying conclusion. There's also a small problem of the POV shifting randomly in some instances. We jump into the heads of Val's mother, a random woman Val runs to for help after Gavin attacks her the first time, and then her art teacher. These served no purpose and felt sloppy, and should have been taken out entirely. We already know Val is a sweet, naive, innocent girl from being inside her head the entire time. We don't need it reinforced from the other characters. But overall I enjoyed Fearscape, and I'm already plotting nefarious deeds to get my hands on the sequel to see what happens.